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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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jieavenly Recognitions, 



BY 



REY. WM. AIRMAN, D. D. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 



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COPYRIGHT, 1883, 
BY AMERICAN 




jieavenly Recognitions. 



Oh, talk to me of heaven. I love 
To hear about my home above ; 
For there doth many a loved one dwell 
In light and joy ineffable. 
Oh, tell me how they shine and sing, 
While every harp rings echoing, 
And every glad and tearless eye 
Beams like the bright sun gloriously. 
Tell me of that victorious palm 

Each hand in glory beareth, 
Tell me of that celestial calm 

Each face in glory weareth. Bowles. 

As we walked, on an autumnal afternoon 
from the new-made grave of a friend, my 
companion said to me, " I feel sure that we 
shall meet and know our loved ones in heaven, 



4 HEA VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

but I often wish that something: more clear 
and positive had been said about it in the 
Bible." 

How many have said the same thing, and 
how many more have thought it, of the dear 
departed ! 

Yet we ought not to be surprised that so 
little is said in the Holy Scriptures about 
the recognition of friends in another life. 
Nothing: is in them made more certain than 
the fact of the existence of heaven. But the 
details of the celestial life are entirely with- 
held. We are not told how the saved shall 
live, what air they shall breathe, where they 
shall abide, what they shall do. The Bible is 
silent about their life and their employments. 
The recognition of friends simply shares in 
the general reticence. 

Yet there is, when one comes to study 
the subject, much in the Holy Scriptures 
that is clear and positive. The recognition 



HE A VENL Y RE CO GN1TI0NS. 5 

of friends is not indeed declared in formulated 
words, yet is made known. A fact may be 
announced even more emphatically by neces- 
sary inferences than by direct assertions. If 
I should see a man with packed trunks pur- 
chasing for himself tickets at the office of a 
European steamer, I would be, if possible, 
more sure that he was on his way to cross 
the ocean, than if he merely said that he was 
about to make the voyage. If it shall be 
found that the recognition, of which I am 
speaking, is a necessary inference from the 
teachings of the Bible, we may be quite as 
well satisfied of the fact as if it were sys- 
tematically taught there. 

It is not my purpose to dwell largely upon 
the possible knowledge which we may gain 
of the inhabitants of heaven, the elect angels 
who make glorious the streets of the New 
Jerusalem; or to speak much of the saints of 
all ages whose white robes gleam in its in- 



6 HE A VENL Y RECO GNITIONS. 

effable light. Nor is it my purpose to linger 
in thought upon the excellence and power 
of that vision of the face of the Lord Jesus 
Christ where 

" The God shines gracious through the man, 
And sheds sweet glories on them all," 

and they are made like him while they see 
him as he is. 

To behold the King of glory, to be assured 
of his love, to live in the calm sunshine of his 
favor, to be enfolded consciously in the infinite 
love of God made real in the person of the 
Lord Jesus, this would be enough to make 
the soul supremely happy and the bliss of 
heaven complete, were nothing else given to 
the saved. We might easily throw our con- 
jectures and our fears upon the winds and be 
willing to give no thought and make no in- 
quiries about our recognition of friends there. 
It would be heaven enough to see Him and 



HE A VENL V RECOGNITIONS. 7 

to know that we are safe and to be for ever 
with him. 

So, too, the companionship of angels 
who have as ministering spirits watched over 
us in our earthly days, but whose faces we have 
never seen, will be very sweet. It will be 
good to mingle in their society, to recall the 
scenes in our history with which they have 
been concerned, and to talk of the kingdom 
of God with which they have had so much 
to do. ' And the acquaintance made with the 
saints of whom we have read, the inspiration 
of whose lives we have felt, who passed into 
the silent heavens centuries before we were 
born, but who will welcome us with smiles 
and love the moment we enter that holy 
place, will make companionships that will be 
for ever blessed- 

I shall take these acquaintanceships for 
granted, and discuss simply the recognition, 
the renewed acquaintance with friends whom 



8 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

we have known here below, after which there 
are so many yearnings and about which so 
many sorrowful and wondering questions are 
asked. 

I propose to confine myself to what the 
Bible, in explicit statement or by necessary 
inference, teaches us, and not to bring for- 
ward arguments derived simply from reason. 
Without the indulgence of imagination or 
conjecture let us see what the Holy Scriptures 
say on this subject. 

The old and tender Hebrew phrase an- 
nouncing death is full of susfo-estive meaning: 
" He was gathered to his fathers." It was say- 
ing what made a part of common thought — 
those who were connected with the departed 
by ancestral ties had preceded him into the 
unseen world, and the dead had gone to join 
their company and to come into their fellow- 
ship. " I shall go to him, but he shall not return 
to me," exclaimed David over his dead child; 



HE A VENL Y RE CO GNITIONS. 9 

and the tearful words of three thousand years 
ao;o have found an instinctive utterance in 
the hearts of bereaved parents ever since. 
Our dear ones pass out of our sight and we 
cannot make them separated from us for 
ever. Without any argument the heart be- 
lieves that somewhere and somehow there 
will be a meeting arain. 

We are told in the Scriptures that we 
shall be made complete in happiness in the 
coming world, that our cup of joy will be full. 
We have no reason to believe that we shall, 
in our thoughts or our feelings, be essentially 
changed. They will be purer and more ex- 
quisitely toned to give us delight. Very 
much of our present happiness is found 
in our social nature, in our associations 
with others. Loneliness is synonymous with 
gloom. You can think of nothing which 
carries more with it the idea of plaintive sad- 
ness than the entire absence of friends and 

2 



io HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

companions, of those who know and love 
you. The presence of others is not enough. 
The more numerous they are the more lone- 
ly you will be, if they are strangers. Per- 
haps under no circumstances is one so op- 
pressed with a sense of utter loneliness as 
when jostled by the crowds of a strange city. 
The thousands may be about him, yet as he 
gazes into their faces, his heart pines all the 
more for some one that he knows. But if 
through the crowd he suddenly sees the form 
and familiar face of a friend from home, his 
heart bounds with a joy that is almost rap- 
ture. 

Heaven might be full of angelic spirits 
and of saints from earth, and they might take 
us into their love the moment we entered 
their home, but still the heart would ask, even 
in the blessedness of their welcome and 
fellowships, for some familiar and loved one 
known before. Need we doubt that in heaven 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS, 1 1 

this instinct and craving of the human heart 
shall be met? Could the happiness be com- 
plete without it? 

Heaven is not a place where there is no 
association. The Christian does not come in- 
to it solitary and to live for ever alone. All 
the conceptions which the Bible gives are 
pervaded by the idea of companionship. The 
believer joins a glorious company, Heb. 12:22, 
23, now when he comes to Jesus Christ. By- 
and-by, in even a more real and appreciable 
sense, he will "come to an innumerable com- 
pany of angels, to the general assembly and 
church of the firstborn which are written in 
heaven and to the spirits of just men made 
perfect." He enters now, in spirit, into their 
companionship; then he will come into their 
society to be elevated, quickened, and made 
happy by it. 

The old hymn of Bernard de Morlaix, has 
the thought in exquisite language — 



1 2 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

Nescio, nescio, quae jubilatio, lux tibi qualis, 
Quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis. 

" I know not, oh, I know not 
What social joys are there; 
What radiancy of glory, 

What light beyond compare." neale. 

The Scriptures give us reason to believe 
that those who have been distinguished in 
God's kingdom on the earth will be at once 
recognized when seen in another life. The 
transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah ap- 
peared with the Lord Jesus in His glory, 
teaches us much on this point. They seem 
to have been immediately known. The 
apostles had, from their childhood, been 
familiar with the history and character of 
these men of God, and as soon as they ap- 
peared they were known to be the great law- 
giver and prophet. Their appearance cor- 
responded with the previous conception. 

Precisely the same would be the result of 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 13 

a sight of them in another life. If recognized 
here, still more would they be known there. 

The words of our Lord, "And I say unto 
you that many shall come from the East and 
the West, and shall sit down with Abraham 
and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God," 
point in the same direction. The saved shall 
recline, as at a feast — so the figure is — with 
these patriarchs in familiar fellowship. If 
they are thus known, why should not those of 
whom we have not simply had a conception, 
but have been with in intimate friendship 
here on earth, with whom we have talked 
and sung and prayed, whom we have loved 
and rejoiced in through many a year of blessed 
memory, why should they not be recognized 
and known ? 

Heaven may well crown with immortality 
the true and sweet companionships some of 
us have had with saints on earth. They 
walked like the shining ones here below, and 



1 4 HE A VENL Y RECO GiVITIONS. 

they walk among the host of the redeemed, 
fit companions for any of the blessed throng. 
Why then should we be compelled to dis- 
cover and choose new and unknown asso- 
ciates? What conceivable reason should 
there be for us to be for ever separated from 
old friends and have given us only strange 
faces and strange forms, glorious and blessed 
though they be, for our new friendships and 
communings? 

Here below we found an ethereal joy and 
hallowed delight together in the things of 
God, moments of prayer and praise, hours 
of sympathy in religious things which were 
like heaven ; why should all these be dropped, 
the old circle be broken and scattered for 
ever, and with careful separation each saint 
be sundered from all he loved on earth, and 
be put among the unfamiliar and the un- 
known? We cannot easily believe it. 

Nor can we believe that all those social 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 1 5 

instincts and affections which God has given 
us shall be for ever laid aside when w r e reach 
heaven. This would make a change so essen- 
tial in us that we have no reason to suppose 
that it will ever take place. If they remain, 
if we carry with us thither our present and 
inborn cravings after love and companionship, 
then the happiness of heaven would not be 
complete were they not met and gratified, not 
merely by sight and recognition, but by asso- 
ciation and friendship with those we have 
known on earth. We shall not be wandering 
for ever among the multitudes of heaven, 
evermore looking wishfully into the faces of 
the gorified to find some whom we knew 
on earth, and whom we have been so longing 
to greet and sighing that we could not see 
them. We cannot believe that ! 

Nothing could prevent this unsatisfied 
longing — which would cloud even the bliss of 
heaven — but a total oblivion of earthly his- 



1 6 HE A VENL Y RE CO GNITIONS. 

tory. For us to lose all desire to see those 
whom we have known and had fellowship 
with on earth in our spiritual life, it would 
be necessary to blot out the memory of earth. 
All our religious history is intimately con- 
nected with others. The mother at whose 
knee you knelt, whose prayers were like an- 
gel benedictions on your head as you slept, 
the father whose arm was around you and 
who wept in joy with you as you told him of 
your new-found hope in Christ; the teacher 
who led you to the Saviour; the pastor whose 
words awakened you and whose counsels 
brought you to the place of peace; the friends 
with whom you have gone to the house of 
God in company and with whom you have 
sat in heavenly places, though on earth — 
these all have been so associated with your 
life, that it were simply impossible for you to 
be in heaven and not remember them. Mem- 
ory must first be lost. 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. i 7 

But what would we be without memory? 
We would not recognize ourselves. With 
all the past blotted out and gone we would 
lose the means of self-identification, would 
enter heaven and be there strangers, not only 
to all around, but even to ourselves. Such a 
radical change, such an utter and absolute 
loss of an essential part of our human nature 
we cannot suppose. Indeed the very songs 
of heaven forbid it : " And they sang a new 
song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the 
book and open the seals thereof, for thou wast 
slain and hast redeemed us to God out of 
every kindred and tongue and people and 
nation." Rev. 5:9. It is memory rehearsing 
in song the work of Jesus on earth. 

We have every reason to suppose that as 
the story of the cross will make the theme of 
praise, so a view of the leadings of Gods 
providence, the varied influences of the Holy 
Spirit as they have shaped the believer's 

3 



18 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

earthly life, the changeful scenes, little un- 
derstood then, but now seen to be the ne- 
cessary steps to the glory which has been 
reached, will be an element of the happiness 
of heaven while the saved dwell upon them 
with wonder and joy. 

If this be so, then the conclusion cannot 
be escaped that others will be associated with 
us in the review. They have so intermingled 
in the history that to separate them from it 
would be impossible. As they alone could 
sympathize with us in the review, to be with- 
out them, to have no one with whom we could 
speak of the past, with whom we could call 
up scenes which are indissolubly connected 
with our very presence in heaven, would be 
contrary to the essential conception of that 
blissful place. 

Such oblivion the apostle Paul clearly 
never contemplated. With what emotions of 
profoundest joy he looks forward to meeting 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 19 

those in whose salvation he had had a part: 
" For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of 
rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence 
of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? for 
ye are our glory and joy." 1 Thess. 2:19. 
So he exclaims in his first and early letter to 
the Thessalonians, as if he would derive a sort 
of consolation for his disappointment at not 
being able to see their faces, which he had 
"endeavored the more abundantly" to do 
"with great desire" (verse 17), from that an- 
ticipated meeting with them in heaven in the 
presence of the Lord of glory. 

In his second letter to the Corinthian 
church Paul makes this anticipated meeting 
with his Christian friends in the revealed 
glory of Christ the ground of his solace and 
strength in the extremity of present trials : 
" For we which live are alway delivered unto 
death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of 
Jesus might be made manifest in our mor- 



20 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

tal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but 
life in you. We having the same spirit of 
faith, according as it is written, I believed and 
therefore have I spoken ; we also believe and 
therefore speak : knowing that He which 
raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us 
also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." 
2 Cor. 4: 11-14. The presentation of them 
with him was a matter of "knowing," and 
connected itself with their assured resurrec- 
tion and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. 
The Spirit-taught apostle anticipated no ex- 
tinction of memory, no oblivion of the past, 
no loss of holy associations and friendships. 
No; rather the coming into the kingly pres- 
ence of his ascended Lord, with the endeared 
friends to whom he had been useful, rose be- 
fore him, a vision of gladness that made the 
passing work and pain of small account. 

Once before in this same Epistle, 2 Cor. 
1 : 14, Paul speaks of this contemplated union 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 2 1 

in glory with his fellow-believers whom he had 
led to the Saviour, as a matter of joy to both 
of them : " Ye have acknowledged us in part, 
that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also 
are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus." So, 
too, in his Epistle to the Colossians, Col. 1 : 28, 
he speaks of this meeting with those to whom 
he had preached as making an inspiration to 
work and to faithfulness : "Whom we preach, 
warning every man, and teaching every man 
in all wisdom, that we may present every man 
perfect in Christ Jesus." His repetition of 
the words " every man " would seem to pre- 
clude the thought that these friends whom 
the Holy Spirit had given him would be lost 
in the unrecognized host of the redeemed. 

With what a tone of calm satisfaction 
and joy does Paul speak, not only of an an- 
ticipated meeting and recognition, but of con- 
tinued and abiding fellowship in heaven with 
his Thessalonian friends, 2 Thess. 1:7: "And 



22 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

to you who are troubled rest with us, when 
the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 
with his mighty angels." He looks forward 
to the revelation of the triumphant Christ as 
the time when all the struggles of himself and 
of these friends would be for ever past and 
the eternal rest would have come. Like bat- 
tle-scarred warriors, like tempest-tossed sail- 
ors, like long-wandering travellers, wearied 
but at home, with hand-graspings and con- 
gratulations they w r ould look into each oth- 
ers faces with smiles and unspeakable satis- 
fatisfaction — " rest with you !" 

Shall we, can we, doubt that what Paul 
looked forward to so gladly will be given to 
all the saved who in their measure have been 
connected with the spiritual life of friends be- 
low ? 

The resurrection of our Lord and of the 
dead leads us to the same conclusion. Our 
Lord, although strangely changed, and wear- 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS, 23 

ing a body far different from that with which 
his disciples had been so familiar, was at once 
recognized by them. Surprised and bewil- 
dered by his unexpected appearance — as we 
have been at the sudden meeting of a friend 
whom we thought to be on another continent, 
and we have not been able " to believe our 
eyes " — they did not know him. But a look, 
a gesture, a word spoken in the old familiar 
way, recalled him, "and they knew him." 
The saints will rise from the dead, their 
forms essentially the same, the aspect of the 
soul appearing more distinctly than ever be- 
fore in the body that clothes it, and they will 
be recognized, perhaps, with far greater facil- 
ity than they are now after a brief absence. 

It is the soul appearing through the fea- 
tures, even here, that marks identity. Your 
friend has been away for a long season, and 
you meet again. At first all seems so changed 
that the attendant circumstances alone con- 



24 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

vince you that it is he ; not a trace of the old 
features seems to remain. But as you talk, 
out of the changed eye there comes the old 
look, the voice assumes the old tone, the fea- 
tures put on their old aspect, and, amid the 
awakened sympathies, your friend is back 
again; the abyss of years is gone, you are to- 
gether as in the days of yore. Soul-contact 
has assured the recognition. 

It is entirely probable that the bodies 
which the saints shall wear in glory will ex- 
hibit in a transparent way the qualities of the 
soul. All those characteristics of excellence 
and loveliness which make those we love 
beautiful will be in them there sublime and 
perfect. These qualities are what make them 
known and loved by us now. These are 
what now we love, irrespective of physical 
form and feature. Then they will abide in 
unchanoinor excellence, and will shine through 
the celestial bodies which hold them with an 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 25 

entirely unobscured radiance. Why should 
they, then, not be recognized by all who have 
ever known and loved them ? why not be 
known with an intuition more immediate 
than in this present life? You will, I think, 
select them out from the shining throng as 
you could from no earthly gathering. You 
will gaze upon those celestial features with a 
rapture of delight which earth never knew — 
its atmosphere was so heavy, and the "earth- 
ly vesture of decay" so grossly shut them in. 

" I know thou art gone where thy forehead is starred 
With the beauty that dwelt in thy soul," 

was the instinctive cry of one who had seen 
in the departed an indwelling loveliness that 
had found no expression in the earthly form. 
That heavenly clime shall bring to the soul 
an immortal bloom, and a celestial body 
shall clothe it with fitting form and feature. 
And shall all eyes gaze with delight, except 
those who most loved those sainted ones on 

4 



26 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

earth? May we not be sure that those very 
eyes shall see them first and most, even as 
they would be the first to exult in the exceed- 
ing beauty? This will be one of the joys of 
heaven next to seeing the King in his beauty 
— to see the holy beauty which we saw only 
dimly here below. Here you have caught 
glimpses of it in the wan face and in the 
eye that would grow hazy with the excess 
of pain. Those glimpses were revelations. 
What will it be to gaze upon a face where no 
shadow rests, into an eye which is only a sky 
of gladness and peace! 

To sum it all up, the Bible teaches us 
that while the presence of the Lord would 
make sufficient the bliss of heaven, yet the 
nature of its happiness, its worship, the con- 
stitution of our nature, and the teachings of 
the resurrection, all lead us to the belief that 
the saved shall know and rejoice in their 
sainted ones who have gone before into glory, 



HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 27 

and that they shall welcome those who fol- 
low, to complete the thankfulness and the joy. 

"No partings yonder; 

Time and space never 
Again shall sunder. 

Hearts cannot sever; 
Dearer and fonder 

Hands clasp for ever." bonar. 

President Edwards, when dying, said to 
his daughter, " Dear Lucy, it seems to be the 
will of God that I must shortly leave you : 
therefore give my dearest love to my dear 
wife, and tell her that the uncommon union 
which has so lono; subsisted between us has 
been of such a nature as, I trust, is spiritual, 
and therefore will continue for ever/' 

There is a deep-toned significance in 
these words of a man who knew, as few have 
known, the innermost recesses of religious 
life. By an almost absolute necessity we 
project our present thoughts and impressions 



28 HE A VENL Y RECOGNITIONS. 

into the future world. Surrounded and con- 
nected with the seen and the material, it is 
well nigh impossible to place ourselves where 
both material and seen things have for ever 
passed away. Yet we are assured that the 
heavenly state will be spiritual. It will not 
be earth made immortal. "In the resurrec- 
tion they neither marry nor are given in mar- 
riage, but are as the angels of God in heav- 
en." The merely earthly will have passed 
away for ever; but what is spiritual and con- 
nected with the life of God will abide in 
higher and purer forms. The only hope of 
reunion yonder is in a spiritual life on earth. 
If here below there has been a walking to* 
gether in company with God, death will not 
make any essential change ; the earthly life 
may simply glide into the heavenly, to be 
refined and beatified in the purer atmos- 
phere of that world of glory. 



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